Tales From a Wizarding War
by Kai-Shek-Yuen
Summary: AU. These are tales of the greatest war that never was; what should have been, what could have been in the Second Wizarding War, and the story of those heroes who rose up to give their all. These are tales of sacrifice, power, and ultimately, victory.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: Harry Potter is not mine, playing in JK Rowling's sandbox for a bit, no characters are my own unless otherwise noted, only the plotline is my own, please don't sue.**

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**Tales from a Wizarding War**

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I was sixteen when the war began. Thrust into a war that shouldn't have been fought, that should have ended fifteen years before. It would be known as one of the most brutal Wizarding wars of the twentieth century, bar none. It was the end of my Fifth year when it all went to hell in a handbasket. Voldemort's rebirth the year before, the ministry's blindness when it came to recognising the threat, the whole _bloody_ fiasco at the Department of Mysteries... Heh. Old anger still burns. That was the turning point for some of us. Especially Harry.

After Sirius' death, something broke inside Harry, and he just pushed himself harder and harder over the holidays. He was a man possessed, outright demanding training from Dumbledore, hoping that raw power and battle training could defeat decades of experience. We joined him too of course, the entire DA and more, in fact. That was my Sixth and Seventh year, endless training and drills from Kingsley and Moody, along with two of Moody's 'friends,' called in as an old favour. Pushed through a combat training regime that put hit wizards to shame, twenty of us passed to Moody's satisfaction in the end, mostly from DA. But we were still children, unblooded, untested children at that. So we pulled out of Hogwarts, all going willingly, and turned into a reaction team against Death Eater strikes. Tempered by harsh, ruthless training, and hardened by the crucible of warfare, I, like countless others, was shaped and sharpened into a blade that would finally cut out the heart of the Darkness.

The first battles we fought were chaotic, fighting against an old menace using new tactics. We lost a lot of good people on the Light side, some of the DA and their families among the toll. We lost too many then and too many more before the war's end.

Twenty years after the end of it all, Wizarding Britain is still recovering. Twenty years after, I feel I can finally talk about the battles I fought. My name is Neville Longbottom, and these are tales from the Second Wizarding War.


	2. Blooding

**Disclaimer: Harry Potter is not mine, playing in JK Rowling's sandbox for a bit, no characters are my own unless otherwise noted, only the plotline is my own, please don't sue.**

AN: Many thanks to my wonderful beta and better half **wild-filly** for her help with the linking, and work in giving this chapter the once-over. (Never mind the fact that she bribed me into doing this...)

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**Blooding**

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Smoke and choking dust filled the air, obscuring vision of friend and foe alike, a deadly rainbow of light leaving trails in their wake shot up and down a street, interspersed with streaks of killing green and the sound of rushing death.

"We've lost Kirke!" A shout was heard over the din of combat, panicked and high.

"Gumboil's down!" Another voice shouted out, professional and to the point, before slinging a string of curses towards the Death Eaters in cover.

"Hold, damn you! HOLD!" Alastor Moody, wand in one hand and a staff in the other, barked orders as he deflected curses and threw precise chains of spells at the Death Eaters ducking out from behind cover.

This was the scene I apparated into, after breaking through the anti-apparition wards along with nine other members of the DA. A rubble strewn street littered with the dead and dying. Diving for cover as soon as I arrived, I had barely enough time to take stock of the situation. Twenty Aurours, some ministry personnel, and half the Order on our side, and more than sixty Death Eaters on the other.

It was the twenty-ninth of August, nineteen ninety-seven. This was the first major Death Eater strike of the war, and the battle for Diagon Alley. It was in the hellhole that was once Wizarding London's busiest street that we made our first kills.

You're probably confused by now, aren't you? I'll admit, it's an odd place to start, but it was my first real combat deployment after the running battle through the Department of Mysteries, fighting only a few Death Eaters. We were totally unprepared for the brutality of an all-out war. Training was one thing, but seeing the guts of someone lying in the street splattered on the wall of the alley behind them does wonders to break your self-control. I was shaking not thirty seconds in.

The team I was in was led by Fred and George. They were ferocious fighters even then, with barely a year and a half of training under their belts. Susan was there, Lee, Colin, Lavender and Ernie too. Our minders were Charlie Weasley and Emmeline Vance, sent along to make sure Fred and George didn't screw up their first command op. First team in, the heavy hitters, the hammer to second team's anvil, one of the more effective attacks we had. We were meant to hit the DE's from the flanks, along with another strike team, but the heavier than usual warding stopped us from getting close enough. We couldn't risk apparating into no-man's-land, not with the amount of magic flying through the air.

Moody ducked around the corner of a building, yelling at Fred and George as soon as he got his breath back. "About bloody time you got here! Where's Team Two?"

"Dunno sir! The warding they put up is heavier than normal, we were pushing it just to get here!"

"Bugger it! You'll just have to fight through the streets, we don't have enough-" Moody's explanation was cut off by the sound of a wet explosion from behind him, one of the ministry employees having caught a reductor to the head. Poor Colin lost his lunch then and there, having caught a spray of blood and gore to his face.

"Damn it all to hell!" Moody roared as he swung back around, slinging fireballs and blasting curses downrange before swinging back. "It's attrition! We don't have the numbers to hold them off here, not like this!" Moody panted, his rage-powered curses having drained a significant amount of his energy. "What are you waiting for?! Go through the side alleys and kill the bastards!"

Grinning maliciously, Fred and George took the lead, using our own code of hand signals to order us towards the left side of the alley. _'Fan out, two metre spread, pairs. Silent spells only'_

I swallowed nervously. Silent spells weren't my forte, but I had a good few under my belt. Susan touched my shoulder, giving me a reassuring glance I returned nervously. It was probably more of a grimace than anything else. We took our position behind Fred and George and advanced with them, drifting to their right so we'd have a clear line of fire. The sounds of spellfire slowly faded as we made our way through the twisting alleys branching off Diagon, wary for ambush.

Speaking of ambushes...

"Incendi-!"

The Death Eater's curse was cut off by a silencing spell from Fred, and the silent cutter that followed in its path removed his head from his shoulders, neck spurting blood as the body crumpled to the ground.

Emmeline had barely the time to throw a disapproving look at Fred and George before a bone-crushing curse zipped past her face, scorching a mark in the wall behind her.

"Ambush! Move forwards, staggered advance!"

We weren't sure how many Death Eaters there were, but they had us in crossfire and we were doing everything we could to find cover and break out of the deadly barrage of spells. I turned just too late to shield a reductor flying at me and Susan, and in a desperate movement I pushed her away from me, launching myself backwards just in time as the blasting curse smashed into the cobblestones between us, throwing us away from each other with a hail of jagged stone. Susan was lucky enough to be able to roll back into cover, a transfigured wall held up by Colin over an injured Lee, all his strength going into the defensive magic. Me? I ended up halfway down another alley, covered in dust and blood, having bowled over two Death Eaters in my spell-induced flight. I was the first to get up, luckily. Two bone-crushing curses later the first one had lost the use of his arms, but he second was a lot more experienced, unfortunately. Everything I threw at him he shielded or dodged, throwing a few curses and hexes my way to keep me off balance. What I wasn't prepared for was the spread of 

blasting curses which impacted the ground in front of me, the murmured spells blasting me off my feet.

I turned what would've been a painful landing into a backwards roll, jumping off to my right as soon as my feet touched cobblestone, and a series of piercing curses and bone-shattering hexes impacted just behind me. Well, not all entirely behind me. I took a piercing curse to my wand arm, and to the outside of my thigh, just missed the bone. If it had hit it, I would've been a goner. The Death Eater just walked up to me, more piercing curses aimed just next to me, missing me by millimetres. If he was trying to intimidate me, it was damn well working. Walking up to me, he didn't bother to disarm me as he hit my wand arm with another piercing curse, the magic in the spell nailing my arm to the ground. He just stood there; we were far enough away from the main battle that he was probably thinking that we wouldn't be interrupted. The bastard had the balls to salute me before he raised his wand. That's when I swept his legs out from under him as I ripped my arm up, and he fell almost on top of me, one hand going for my throat, the other raising his wand.

"_Incendia Ma_-"

"_Cruorem Ferveo_!" Desperately, panicking, I jabbed my wand at the Death Eater, the tip going through the eye socket of the mask he was wearing with a squelch as it burst his eye. Then the spell's effects took place. The Blood Boiling curse did exactly what it was named for as the vital fluid in his veins superheated and flash-boiled his insides, blood spurting like a fountain from every orifice, his scream cut short, turning into a horrible gurgling, splattering noise. Blood gushed out of the eye holes in the mask, out of his ears, splattering all over me as the Death Eater crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut into a rapidly growing pool of his own liquefied insides.

My first kill. The first time which I've ended someone's life, and they've been within arm's reach of me.

I'm not proud to say that I only managed to get three steps before emptying the contents of my stomach on the cobblestones. Stumbling away from the body, covered in blood and vomit, I turned just in time to hear a Death Eater start to cast the killing curse. My body reacted on pure instinct and adrenaline, pushing as much power into my next spell that I could.

"_Talearcus_!" I spun around to face the Death Eater, my wand bucking in my off-hand as a thick blue arc of magic erupted from its path, slicing him cleanly in two, and continuing through, two trenches left in the walls of the alley where the curse's ends hit. That spell took the last of my already depleted reserves, and with fading vision, I crawled to the side of the alley, hoping that any enemies thought I was dead.

They found me after nightfall, magical core exhausted and almost in a coma. I woke up five days later in the intensive care ward of St. Mungos.

The first thing I saw when I woke up was white, blinding white. Dimly the smell of antiseptic and potions reached my nose, and the feeling of clean linen against my skin registered. Something was warm beside me. Tuning my head to the side, I saw a messy head of blonde sharing my pillow.

"...Su?" I croaked out, voice crackly from disuse.

Susan snapped upright, wide eyes rimmed with dark circles.

"Neville!" She lunged at me, half crushing me onto the bed, burying her face into the crook of my neck.

"You made it out! Did we lose any-" I tried to sit up, but Susan pushed me down again, fetching me a glass of water from the bedside table.

She shoved it under my nose, waiting for me to take it. "Drink, you'll start coughing if you try to talk otherwise."

I drank the glass in a few quick gulps, half-choking the last mouthful down, my previous question already on my lips before the glass left my mouth.

"Did we lose anyone?"

Susan shook her head, relief in her eyes. "Not this time." She said with a wry grin. "Lee took some shrapnel to the head, Colin's still exhausted from all that magic he burnt up shielding him, and the rest of us just took minor injuries, nothing too serious." She launched herself at me again, shaking as she squeezed me. "I thought you didn't make it out..." She murmured, about to say something when the door to my room burst open.

"Oi, lovebirds! Break it up, it's time for Longbottom's debrief."

Moody hobbled in, head half bandaged with one arm in a splint, his wooden leg clunking more loosely than usual.

"Alright Bones, out you get." Moody said with a jerk of his head. "You've had your debrief already."

As soon as Susan was out the door, Moody shut it with a flick of his hand and sat himself in the vacated seat near my bed. His tone was admonishing, but the grin on his face said otherwise. "I saw what you left of those two Death Eaters lad, do try to be cleaner in the future. Blood takes ages to wash off cobblestones."

My stomach lurched at the memory, the smell of copper and bile assaulting my nostrils, snatches of garbled spells buzzing distantly.

Moody's grin disappeared, I must've gone pale during that flashback, and he staggered up, putting a firm hand on my shoulder.

"Breathe in lad, deep breaths, it'll pass soon." He continued on, and I nodded vacantly to most of his questions as I forced the bile back down. I guess he noticed I wasn't holding up well when he stopped abruptly, squeezing my shoulder reassuringly as he leaned back. I didn't even notice his hand was still there.

"Still dealing, eh lad? Not to worry, I'll debrief you another day. Get some rest." Moody said as he turned to leave.

"Wait, Sir-" I trailed off, not sure how to ask the question that was in my mind ever since I woke up.

"Yes lad? Go on, speak up."

"Wh- What was it like?" I stuttered out, old nervousness getting the better of me.

Moody's face twisted into a smirk as he limped back towards my bed.

"What was what like? There are two things you could be asking me about, and I bloody well know it wouldn't be about sex."

I felt my face burning up, encouraged by Moody's raucous laughter. He quickly sobered though, prompting me to ask, to say it out loud.

"What was your first k-kill like?" I inwardly cursed my stutter.

"My first kill, Neville?" Moody asked in return. "It was beautiful, lad. It was beautiful." His gaze unfocused, disconcerting me. It wasn't until much later, when I saw that same look on Harry's face that I realised that it was the look of a man that had seen far too much.

"You- You're joking, right?"

"Nay, lad. Your first kill is all instinct, all training and reflexes. That's the beauty of it..." There was an unspoken but at the end of that sentence and I waited for the old Auror to continue.

"The second kill is the hardest. The time when you look them in the eyes, and see the light leave them... Never learn to love it, lad." Moody paused before locking eyes with me, growling out his next sentence. "You'll be no better than those Death Eater _scum_ then."

"...Yes, sir."

Moody shook his head wryly, and put a firm hand on my shoulder. "Lad, don't call me 'sir' anymore. Call me Alastor, or Moody, if you prefer. No matter what anyone else says, you're a man now. Your parents would be proud."

I smiled weakly. "Alright, Moody."

He nodded in response before turning around and leaving my room.

I sat for a long while, wand idly twirling through my fingers. Like Harry, war was about to become my profession, and lives taken, my pay.


End file.
